Expect to hear more from former Nine Entertainment colleagues Chris Janz and David Eisman, following the launch of their first publication, Capital Brief last month.

Behind the launch is their start-up, Scire Business, reported to be “well funded” through the support of Australian venture capital firm Shearwater, and with “about three years of financial runway”.

Janz was chief digital and publishing officer at Nine following its takeover of Fairfax Media. He left after hopes of the top job were dashed with the appointment of Mike Sneesby, whose 2023 package of almost A$3.9 million (including a cash bonus) has just been reported. Eisman was previously subscriptions and growth director with the media giant.

Scire has a team of about 20 journalists led by editor-in-chief John McDuling – plus “bespoke content” from newsagency AAP – although it is clear ambitions go well beyond the business publication.

From the start, Capital Brief is subscription – rather than advertising – focussed with an opening pitch at $29/month or $228 a year ($19/month), and with the promise of three newsletters and three more to come “later in 2023”.

Writing in INMA’s Newsroom Initiative blog, Peter Bale describes the initial offering as “a new breed of news site in Australia that is unashamedly built on lessons from the new generation of American news businesses, growing from highly focused and high-quality journalism rather than reach and a click-based dependency on advertising”.

Bale says Janz “seems almost relieved” that it has become media business logic to think of the journalism first and expect users to pay for it – and want to pay for it.

Janz talks of his belief in the business of journalism, adding that “there’s never been a more exciting time” to be in it.

He acknowledges a debt to “the breed of American sites that have carved out new models based on niches where readers are prepared to pay for the right reporting in a reader-revenue-first and journalism-first model”, citing Jessica Lessin’s The Information, Jim VandeiHei’s Axios, and Ben Smith and Justin Smith’s Semafor as inspirations that have “proven the model”.

He says the world has moved on from the likes of Huffington Post and BuzzFeed and others “built around scale from search and social”, with the recent rise of a range of new editorial models “that all have slightly different businesses and very different audiences.

“The one thing they’ve all got in common is that they’re built off the back of quality journalism, quite sharp journalism.”

Bale says Janz “knows instinctively” the lessons from times at Nine, News Corp Australia, and earlier start-ups and ventures, “and has the scars”.

Scire’s formula will include “elements from a whole bunch of models that we’ve seen, tried and tested elsewhere, with a bit of a twist.”

-See Janz draws a line at Nine and takes his ambition elsewhere